Mantraps
by Grym
Summary: A mysterious illness threatens to claim the life of the Midnighter. An early Authority fiction, harking back even to the old Stormwatch days. [WIP, on hiatus]
1. Fever Dreams

_Disclaimer: Standard fare. Don't own. Won't get paid. Check out Wildstorm.  _

_Feedback: Greatly desired, good or bad! I have had very little response on this one. The story was began years ago and has yet to see its completion. I finally decided to find it a home on FFN in hopes of also finding further inspiration from fellow authors and readers._

_Other: This tale takes place post-Authority #4 but is inspired by a half-resolved Stormwatch incident. The characters are extrapolated from the Warren Ellis Authority and totally ignore the ham-fisted crud that defines  Mark Millar's run on the title and all that follows him._ MANTRAPS Act I: Fever Dreams 

"Jenny."

Even from the depths of much-needed sleep, Jenny Sparks could feel the warm, broad fingertips press against her shoulder and shake her softly. Instinctively realizing that imminent danger rarely had such a gentle touch, she grumbled and threw herself over onto her side.  "Piss off, Apollo," she muttered hazily, recognizing the radiant heat at her back, the vague warmth that she associated with sunlight.  "Lemme sleep."

The pale-haired adonis leaned over her, his breath warm on her face as he whispered in her ear.  "Wake up, Jenny."  Louder this time, his voice held an urgent undercurrent that finally registered through the comfortable darkness.  She groaned, knowing she was on the verge of having to rise.  Figures in her dreams cursed before popping soundlessly, vanishing in the wake of early morning reality.  

Apollo brushed her damp blonde hair away from her neck in another tentative attempt to rouse her.  Cold morning air rushed against her skin.  "Jenny, I'm serious.  Mid's sick."

"Get yer bleedin' paws off me, sunbeam," she groused, not entirely ill-naturedly, as she pushed up on one elbow.  Last night's long bout of drinking hit her like a fist. "I never know where they've been and I'm not too keen to find out.  What's the problem?"

Apollo sat back on his haunches in the floor. He offered her a brief, dazzling grin, but his sky-blue eyes failed to reflect his trademark good-humor.  Worry had settled in ridges between his eyebrows and edged his speech noticeably.  "Midnighter's really ill."

Jenny frowned. Ever since the two men had undergone their artificial modifications, neither suffered hunger, thirst, or illness of any kind.  "Give me a second and I'll come with you."  She rolled out of bed and Apollo averted his eyes politely while she pulled a pair of white shorts on beneath her rumpled Union Jack t-shirt.  Padding across the room on bare feet, she nodded.  "Right. Let's go.  And you had better bloody well not be exaggerating out of some misbegotten maternal instincts.  If you are, I'll be forced to--" She broke off at the doorway.  Apollo was already halfway down the hall and waiting impatiently, utterly unconcerned with her sleepy threats.  Jenny didn't like that.  At all.

                                                            *   *   *

He had found him an hour before, when slipping in after a particularly late card game with Jack and Angie. The subtle glances his two companions had given each other for the last couple of rounds had finally made him miss his own partner, and after making excuses he wasn't sure were really even heard, he headed back to their shared quarters.  

The lights were out, the crimson light of the Bleed suffusing everything in its eerie glow.  Apollo hesitated in the closed doorway to let his eyes adjust as he glanced around for his companion.  The bed sheets were in typical chaos but unoccupied; the bathroom door dark and ajar.  It took a moment to notice the slumped figure, a black leather lump seemingly asleep in one of the two armchairs they had recently brought onboard. Only after Apollo crept quietly from the bathroom, wrapped in his own fuzzy white robe, had he heard the sharp intake of breath, quickly stifled.

"Mid?" he whispered, frowning.  "You awake?"

No answer.  No movement.

Apollo froze in the lurid red light, suddenly alert, years of street-caution triggering rapidly.  The fine white hairs at the nape of his neck bristled as he listened, watched for ageless seconds.  There was something almost furtive about the way the Midnighter hunched in the chair, a black beast crouched at the length of the trap's chain, willing the shadows to hide him.  Thinly, the ragged sound of breathing came to Apollo's ears, soft and shallow.  "Mid? You okay?"  As he stepped closer, he noticed the buckles on the other man's coat trembling.  

A small thing.  A tiny, repetitive, erratic motion, terribly out of place.   

Apollo stared in confusion for a second before dropping to his knees beside the chair. The Midnighter turned away stiffly, but not before his friend saw the taut lines of pain around his mouth and the narrow inward-focused eyes behind the mask.

Crouching in front of the chair, Apollo took his partner's face in gentle hands.  "God, you're burning!"  The natural radiant heat that came from his own skin seemed cool in comparison to the damp heat that poured from the Midnighter.

"Not hot. Cold," the darker man answered finally, voice an unsteady rasp.  "Worse than usual."  He shuddered violently and a wet, tearing cough ripped through him, choking him.  The wooden arms of the chair creaked as his hands closed over them in an effort to catch his breath.  Apollo held his heaving shoulders as if he could somehow ward off the wracking spasm and, when it finally passed, gently pressed him back into the chair.  "I'm okay," the Midnighter groaned even as he tried to wave Apollo's hands away. "Go on.... I'm fine."

Apollo's eyes scoured him through the ruddy shadows, deeply concerned.  "Don't be a fool," he said, the words more snappish than he had intended. "You're not supposed to be sick. We can't *get* sick."

"Oh. That's a hell of a relief." The Midnighter licked cracked lips and gave him a brief smile to soften the sarcasm.

Apollo balanced beside the chair, frustration and worry conflicting in his chiseled features.  "Don't be flip.  I can feel the heat coming off you from here."

"It'll pass."  The Midnighter's voice hardened to stone, signaling an end to the conversation.

Apollo shivered. "It had better.  How does that computer in your head react in a high temperature environment?"  He reached one hand out to brush the hot leather of the mask and sighed with exasperation when the other man ducked his head slightly away. "How long have you been sitting here like this?"

"Just a little fever. Nothing to whine over."  The Midnighter moved to tug his long leather coat tighter around him, but his shaking fingers failed to get a firm grip and he gave up without a second attempt.  

_No weakness_, Apollo thought grimly.  _Show no weakness, even to me._  He sighed.  "Well, let me at least get you to bed.  Better than sitting here all cramped in that chair."

"I'm fine," the Midnighter repeated stubbornly.

"You need to lie down."  Apollo grasped him beneath one arm and tugged him reluctantly to his feet, his iron-strong grip light but unbreakable.  "Minus some leather."

"Leave it." The Midnighter stumbled slightly, forced to lean into the crook of Apollo's arm despite his own protests.  Balancing himself even half-upright took most of his concentration, so he could only offer cursory growls when the other man deftly stripped the heavy coat from one shoulder, then the other, and let it fall to the floor between them.  

With the coat gone, Apollo could feel the fevered tension of his partner's muscled body as he held him, could feel the quivers of threatened collapse in the powerful legs.   Quickly, Apollo guided him to the bed, his own tight laugh at odds with the panic that clenched an iron fist in his gut.  "You never complained about me undressing you before," he quipped, a half-hearted attempt.

"Shut up."  Slowly and with help, the Midnighter lay back amid the tousled sheets, gritting his teeth and swearing darkly under his breath.

Apollo haphazardly piled blankets on him.  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he worked the gloves loose, increasingly frightened by the palsied shaking in the other man's usually steady hands. He tossed the back-spiking gloves in the floor with the coat, and the mask followed, revealing greyish skin and hair slicked with sweat.  The heavy combat boots were dropped at the foot of the bed.  "I'm going to wake Jenny."

The Midnighter shook his head. "Tell her I want an omelet after you pick your singed ass out of the carpet."  His grin cracked as another wave of pain hit him, and he buried his fingers in the sheets to mask their trembling.  "I just need … a little rest. Sparks won't want you  … disturbing hers."  

Apollo thought it sounded quite possible, but still too much like the kind of ironic rationalizations made by mortally wounded field-soldiers.  He hurried out.

                                                            *   *   *

When they arrived, Jenny was startled to see Jack Hawksmoor lurking in the hall, a black t-shirted, bare-footed figure that, paradoxically, didn't seem out of place amid all the metal and glass of the corridor.  His rugged face was drawn with weariness and mild confusion, but he offered them his usual lopsided grin.  "Wondered how long it would be before you got here."

Apollo hurried past him with the briefest of smiles and a quick nod of acknowledgement.  He and Midnighter had known Hawksmoor from their few days with Stormwatch, and ever since they rescinded their "retirement," Jack had become increasingly companionable, increasingly likely to attempt to banter with the taciturn Midnighter, friendly gestures that were not entirely rebuffed.  Apollo had been glad to see his partner making a few small overtures in return, connecting with Jack and, gradually, with others.  He had a long way to go, certainly, but it was a start.

Jenny raked one hand through her disheveled blonde hair. "You look like hell, Jack. Somebody interrupt your beauty sleep?"

"Yeah. Ages ago. What's your excuse?"  Some quietly discomfited fidgeting belied his casual smirk.  Hawksmoor paced a few steps after Apollo's disappearing back on leathery, treaded feet before turning to her.  "Actually, the Carrier told me there was a problem."

"The Carrier?" Jenny started.  "I didn't think-"

"I didn't either. I can't explain it.  It's not like with cities, more amorphous, less direct.  Just a sensation, really.  Like a hangover or  … hell, I don't know how to say it.  But I know there's something wrong. *She* knows there's something wrong."

"Apollo says Midnighter's sick."  Jenny made a mental note to return to this point later.  Thus far only the Engineer and the Doctor had been able to half-communicate with the massive shiftship they currently called their working home.  If it were beginning to break the silence with Jack, given Jack's unique abilities to commune with large metropolitan areas, perhaps …  

Jenny shook off the fascination to concentrate on the "trouble" of the moment, ducking into the room with Jack uninvited at her heels.  "Okay, Midnighter," she began as she entered the reddish dark.  "Why the hell did you let Apollo wake me up at this ungodly hour?"

"He ... overreacts." The Midnighter's rough voice was low and pained.  Without the omnipresent coat and bristling leather gloves, he seemed somehow smaller, sprawled beneath a myriad of blankets, though no less formidable.  Both Jack and Jenny stared for a moment, unused to seeing the man's face masked only by the shifting shadows of Bleedlight.  Damp dark hair, a wide fighter's nose that looked as if it had been broken several times and set badly, deep-set eyes now lined with restrained pain.  Sketchy scars crisscrossed his skin beneath rivulets of sweat that looked disturbingly like blood in the garish red light.  He shook with a tearing cough, then wiped his lips with the back of one unsteady hand. Jenny was almost certain the dark stain that seemed to appear there was indeed blood.  

"Overreacts, my white British ass."  Ignoring his forbidding eyes, Jenny tossed back blankets until she could trap his wrist between three fingers.  "You look worse than Jack here."  Jack started to thump her between the shoulder blades as he passed behind her, but thought better of it and merely pulled a tolerant face.  Ignoring him, the Brit briefly examined a rather disgruntled Midnighter.   "Pulse is racing.  Skin's hot.  Eyes dilated. You spitting blood?"

"No ... problem."  

"Yeah, sure.  Hurt much?" His breathing was labored, she noticed, and he lay unmoving except for the shuddering rise and fall of his chest and the rigidly controlled shaking in his hands.

"No," he grated after a moment.

Jack watched from across the room, squatting in the "windowsill," a dark silhouette against the red.  "Like hell," he murmured.

Planting one hand in the center of the Midnighter's chest, Jenny leaned forward and glared into his face.  "Don't sodding lie to me right now. I'm too knackered for your macho rubbish."  She felt him flinch slightly away from the pressure of her hand, felt the rapid tremor that accompanied his sharply drawn breath. Rather than meeting her eyes clearly, his were narrowed, shadowed beneath low-drawn brows. "I thought so," she growled and stood, looking across the bed at Apollo.  "What happened?"

The big man shook his head, long white hair falling in unconcerned disarray about his shoulders.  "I don't have a clue.  I don't think he does either."

Jenny stared at the Midnighter again, but seeing the knotted muscles that worked in his jaw and his clenched fist, visible efforts to control pain, she didn't press him to speak.  "How long?"

"A few hours, at least.  I'm guessing," Apollo answered, sitting on the edge of the bed and lightly taking one of the other man's hands between his own.  "The pain seems to come in surges, increasing exponentially." He rubbed his thumb over the bloodstains on the back of the hand. "I'm worried about this, though. And the fact that … well, it shouldn't be happening at all."

The Brit nodded.  Doctor? Wake the hell up. _ Dammit_, Jenny thought, _if I have to be awake, so does everyone else_.  Shen, good bloody morning, girl.

The first voice that replied in her head felt ... smoky, indistinct.  Yes, Jenny?  The Doctor.

Lighter, but no less sleepy, came Shen's answer.  Good morning to you, too. What's up, besides me now?

_Shen's just tired, but he's probably strung out_, Jenny scowled.  Eventually, she'd have to break that unfortunate habit of the shaman's but for now, it might prove useful.  I need some kind of pain dampener up in the Dynamic Duo's quarters. Can you manage that?

Pain killers? he responded hesitantly.  Medicine isn't exactly my-- 

Jenny glowered, even though he couldn't see her. I *know* you're stashing *something* away for a rainy day.  Give, already.  

And to Shen.  I need you to contact Jackson and Christine. Tell them we've got an odd problem with Midnighter. Any back information they still have in their computers would be useful.  And tell 'em this, too:  I know how bleedin' "thorough" those info wipeouts Stormwatch professed to do were.  I want the backups. Now.

Almost simultaneously, a pair of Can do.s rang in her head, their confusion clear even over the radiotelepathic link. At least they didn't argue. Jenny wasn't sure she could maintain a professional temper if someone argued with her this morning.  

In less than ten minutes, the Doctor peered in the open door, his purple-hued vest hanging haphazardly off one shoulder and the rest of his outfit looking as if he'd slept in it.  He probably had.  "Hello?" he called, blinking and frowning at the gathering as he lingered in the doorway, searching for Jenny.  "Apollo throwing a party and I wasn't invited?"  

Apollo waved him inside with a distracted half-smile, and the shaman held up a small bottle of clear liquid and an archaic-looking metal syringe for Jenny to approve.  "What's going on?  Seems like I  - ah - musta picked up this little bit of morphine somewhere recently. That do?" 

The growl from the bed was instantaneous.  "No drugs."  Baring his teeth nastily, the Midnighter turned suddenly hostile brown eyes towards the little man. 

Jenny ignored him, arching an irritable eyebrow at the Doctor instead.  "Where the hell did that thing come from?  An antiques auction?"

Behind red lenses, the Doctor's eyes seemed redder still, itchy and marbled from sleeplessness and his own recent dabbling in various "habits," as Jenny insisted on calling them.  Now those eyes held mingled exasperation and reluctance. "I -ah - I don't remember, exactly.  Had it for years. It works, though."  Before Jenny could begin a truly spectacular rant, and he was sure her expression promised a diatribe on the perils of drug addiction when working for her, the Doctor hurried on a new tack, gesturing to the prostrate form on the bed.  "This for Midnighter?  What's wrong?"

"Wish we knew," Jenny said tersely.  "Shen's calling Jackson; maybe he knows something we don't."

"He's hurting.  That's enough," Apollo explained, not looking up.  "And I'm afraid it's getting worse." He grimaced sharply as his partner's strong fingers closed over his own like a vice.

The Doctor could see the sheen of sweat, the greyish wet of the pillow, the heightened flush of his colleague's exposed face, strange without its typical black cowl.  Convulsive tremors wracked the dark-clad body and Apollo's free hand flickered over him uselessly, trying to soothe but unable to help except by offering a familiar, friendly touch.  

Face contorted, teeth clamped on his lower lip until a thin line of blood appeared, the Midnighter bit down on what might have been a groan of pain. Then as quickly as it had come, the sudden agony faded, leaving him panting and weak.  But even laboring to catch his breath, he still glared a warning across the room at the Doctor.

"Ah, Jenny," the young shaman began, shifting his weight from one leg to the other.  "You want to handle this, then?"  He wriggled one hand through his uncombed red hair nervously, not needing the wisdom and experience of the Doctors before him to know that he should tread carefully. Bed-ridden or not, the dark side of Jenny's "dynamic duo" was still more than dangerous.

"Why? You're better at shooting up than I ever was."

"I said no drugs, Doctor."  The Midnighter spoke through gritted teeth, his tone harsh with latent threat.  "Come near me with that and ... I'll cram those stupid red goggles ... into your lungs."

The Doctor hesitated, arcing his eyebrows slightly.  He looked back at the others.  "Jenny? Jack?"

"Shit. Everybody's determined to hack me off this morning."  Jenny's face twisted in exasperation.  "He can't hurt you. He can't even get the hell up.  If he tries, you have my permission to turn him into a bunch of sodding snowflakes."  

She turned glittering, humorless eyes on the ailing man, her voice hardening with each phrase.  "And you, you sodding ponce.  My patience isn't good at the best of times and this is *not* the sodding best of times.  It's 5 o'clock in the sodding morning, the bottle of gin I had last night has set up a sodding wormhole in my head, and I want to go back to my sodding bed.  Give the Doctor any more trouble and I'll kick *your* sodding lungs up through the top of your head.  Understood?"

The Midnighter scowled at her sullenly but had the grace -- and the intelligence, Jack thought -- not to respond.

"Apollo, help the Doctor before he pisses his pants.  I'm leaving." Jenny looked grouchily at her dying cigarette, dropped it on the floor and crushed it out.  Before she had reached the door, the few inches of littered floor shimmered and the ash vanished into mercurial swirls.

Jenny? I've got Jackson. He's on his way. Shen's light voice inside her head made her wince.  

_No going back to bed now,_ Jenny groused to herself, lighting another ubiquitous cigarette.  She considered lighting two.  Good. Tell him I'll meet him in the Junction Room when he comes through.  With a final, all-inclusive glare, she stalked out.

Almost wistfully, the Doctor watched the door slide closed behind her.

Apollo beckoned the unsettled shaman over to him.  Sliding his partner's crushing, white-knuckled grip to the edge of the bed, he murmured quietly, voice pitched only for the Midnighter's enhanced hearing.  "You're suffering, Mid.  I can't stand to see that.  Let the Doctor do as Jenny asked."  

Not waiting for signs of agreement, he pushed back one dark sleeve, baring an arm that bore a battlefield of scars.  The shadowed lines of collapsed veins and streaks of thickened skin across the wrists spoke brutally of past destructions.  Apollo touched them gently, all too familiar with the marks of struggle, the reminders of nightmares and times best forgotten.  "It's okay," he soothed, _sotto voce_. "I'm here.  It's not like it was."

The Doctor sidled over beside him with a surprised grunt.  He didn't ask about the scars, the subtle ravages of needles and knives.  Old, he noted, and permanent. Self-inflicted like those that adorned his own careless body?  More likely the handiwork of someone or something else, he decided. A man like the Midnighter would have no need for the easy fix of escapism or the failed release of a late-night knife. 

Knowing he would never ask in any case, the shaman brushed away useless speculation to concentrate instead on the task at hand. "No hitting," he said, only half in jest. "I break."

The Midnighter growled between strained breaths and closed his eyes as if unwilling to argue.  But while the Doctor sought a viable vein, the forearm beneath his fingers corded in instinctive resistance.  Midnighter's broad hand curled into fist and the shaman hesitated, eyeing it warily. 

"Just stick him and be done with it," Jack gruffed from his silent vigil across the room. His tone only partly masked his own concern.  "Damn drama queens, all of you." 

As if in response, the Midnighter's back arched suddenly, a new rush of pain snapping every muscle taut.  He hissed through his teeth, breath catching and strangling in his throat.  Apollo rose, clutching at his partner in concern, while the shaman blindly stabbed the needle home.  Long agonized minutes passed before the drug began taking effect and the Midnighter sank back, shaking, a thin trickle of blood pooling in the corner of his slightly opened mouth.

"How much did you give him?"  Face drawn in anxious lines, Apollo's fingers brushed gently across the ailing man's jaw and throat before he forced himself to sit back, to turn away for a brief glance at his comrades.

"Enough to make him sleep. I think."

Jack's chuckle was dark, forced.  "Well, at least one of us gets to sleep. Jenny won't like it."  He gave up the attempt at levity almost before he began.  "Doctor, if you want to go consult with Her Grumpiness and Jackson, when he arrives, I'll keep watch with Apollo.  Assuming he'll loan me this window seat?"

Apollo offered a weak smile as he tucked himself into an armchair with a good view of the bed.  "Thanks, Jack."

The shaman nodded. "Not sure what good I can be.  Healing magic and battle magic are rather two separate things.  But I can go consult the Others.  I'll -- uh -- leave this."  He held up the half-emptied morphine bottle and the little syringe, placed them on the room's single table, and hurried out.

Apollo watched him leave.  "Strange fellow," he observed, trying to turn his mind away from the panic that wanted to overwhelm him.  "I think I like him, but there's something infinitely odd about him."

Jack's grin was pale in the shadows.  "Heh. He's in good company then. We specialize in infinite oddness here."  He leaned against the curvature of the window, stretching his legs out along the narrow sill-ledge, balancing with ease where cat would have tumbled to the floor. 

"Speaking of company," Apollo filled the silence naturally despite his own palpable tension, "I thought you and Angie would play longer. Didn't expect to find you hanging out here, even though I'm always glad of backup."

Jack folded his arms across his broad chest, slightly discomfited by the other man's easy indirectness.  "We played one more hand.  I couldn't concentrate—"

Apollo glanced back at him significantly, lips curved in a tiny, sly smile.

"Not like that," Jack continued hurriedly. "Damn, Apollo. Midnighter's corrupting you. The Carrier's communicating with me now …somewhat…and was rather insistent about me coming here.  I didn't know why at the time."

"Bad timing for you." 

Jack shrugged.  "Who knows? Not me, that's for sure."

  
"All part of the game," Apollo offered.  "We don't always understand or choose the time, place, or person."  He paused, considering for a small moment. "Give her a while to get used to this craziness, Jack.  We all need that now.  In time, I think she'll see what you want her to."

"Yeah …but…" Hawksmoor shifted uncomfortably, sitting up in the window again to scrub at his stubbled chin, vaguely agitated.  "There are other … issues."

"Issues add flavor." Apollo shrugged, gaze straying back to where the Midnighter twitched restlessly in his uneasy sleep.

Jack rolled his eyes.  "I imagine you know all about that." He changed the subject with a relative lack of grace.  "Midnighter doesn't care much for needles, does he?"

The other man continued to watch the bed, but Jack could see the worried twist in Apollo's good-natured smile.  "Not much. Anything remotely medical makes him jittery, not that he'd admit it.  I think it reminds him of our modification procedures. His weren't so pleasant, or so I gather. He doesn't talk about it much."

Jack cleared his throat and stared out into the scarlet void of the Bleed.  "Yeah.  I can understand that."

Apollo looked across at him briefly, nodded, and didn't press.

                                                            *   *   *

"Come down to my quarters.  I'll get you an early morning beer."  Jenny grasped Jackson King's broad hand amiably. "That's about as much hostessing as you'll get from me, so you'd better take me up on it."

The tall, muscular black man grinned and ruefully rubbed his head.  "I'm not ever touching your beer again, as I recall."  He fell in step beside her as she left the Junction Room.  Clad in rumpled casual business -- black chinos, white button-down shirt, loose tie and suspenders -- he looked little like the famous Stormwatch team leader and later Weatherman.  But his purposeful gait and clear, intelligent gaze held hints of the man he had been before the United Nations ended that organization's service.  The man he still was, just without the resources.

Jenny gave him a sharp, slightly befuddled look.

"Your orders, remember?  After you nearly pulled the electricity out of my brain.  Well, out of Battalion, the new Stormwatch training officer's brain. Sometimes I don't think that man was even me."  He shook his head with a wry chuckle.  "I *did* ask for it, even if it *was* in the line of duty. But if you're offering freely this time, I won't say no."

Jenny grinned.  "Bastard.  Some things never change, but I think I can spare you a beer. Especially if you can spare me some insight on this sodding pair of enhanciles I've enlisted."

"Swift said you wanted files for Midnighter and Apollo.  Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most of the "backup" files really did go up into the sun with the Skywatch space station.  I have some fragments," he waved a small blue disk at her, "but they're not much."  He stared around him as they traveled through the Carrier, eyes widening at the massive intrastructures of alien metal and what appeared to be crystal or translucent glass.  "Nothing nearly as impressive as the information that this ship must carry."

Jenny snorted.  "I imagine not.  But the ship can't help us with this one.  Over here."  She turned a smooth corner, the angles composed of a series of natural curves finely built from thin metallic strands.  Soundlessly, one wall opened into a door and they stepped out of the silvered corridor light into a dim room.  Tiny pearl lights seemed to dance across everything in the room, flooding in from Ideaspace beyond the huge window.  Outside, ghostly creatures on four legs, low to the "ground" and gleaming with opalesque light, loped beside the Carrier, their legs churning the air, silver-white tongues lolling in expressions of clear delight.  

Jackson stared in awe.  "My God," he breathed.  "Where are we?"

Jenny chuckled.  "The Carrier passes through this universe every so often; seems to like the company we always attract.  I'm not quite sure what it is out there, what they are, but Shen believes they're incarnations of dreams leaked from another parallel universe.  Who knows? The Doctor said something about them being expressions of sensations.  I understood that bit even less."  She shrugged and rummaged around for drinks, pausing long enough to kick some clothes beneath the bed.  "But to business."

"Business," he repeated, moving a couple of bottles and a scattered deck of cards from the only chair in the room before sitting down.  "The U.N. is clearing matters up down in Gamorra, you might be happy to know.  Resistance is giving some trouble in isolated pockets.  Clones have always been notoriously easy to brainwash and hard to sidetrack.  The tech you suggested might be there seems to have vaporized with the Tower when the Midnighter took his joy ride."

"Here." With a careless toss, Jenny sent a cool, slick bottle through the air towards him.  It seemed to hesitate in mid-flight above his chair, then dropped neatly into his hand and she grinned appreciatively.  "Ah, telekinesis without suit amplification.  Keeping in practice, I see." 

"Never took the suit for the little things."

"Like catching beer bottles flung at your head?  Useful skill."  Jenny curled herself at the foot of her still-unmade bed with another bottle.  "Breakfast." She made a small salute with it, then tipped the bottle back and drew a couple of long swallows.  

Jackson tilted his bottle at her in response.  "Last contact I had with General Tsai, the man who's running the recovery effort down there, said they had discovered a sub-level to the Tower. Totally impenetrable to sensors.  Looks promising, if they can find a way to breach it. Seems to have been separated from the rest of the building completely, right down to airlock seals.  Of course, the rest of the building is now rubble, thanks to your remarkable team."  His sat for a moment, drinking quietly.  When he continued, his tone was earnest.  "Jenny, I can't tell you how much your reappearance with this … Authority of yours means.  To the world and to Christine and me."

"No mush, Jackson."  Jenny sniffed.  "If I felt I had a choice, you know I wouldn't be here. I used to like sleeping at night without visions of skies full of superbastards to spoil my drunken stupor.  But that's not why I had Shen radio you."

"Something up with Apollo and Midnighter?"

"Yeah.  To put it simply, Midnighter is pretty damn sick.  And I mean that in a physical way, not mental or emotional ... although those probably apply too, but I try to stay out of my team's personal lives."  Her gleaming, intense gaze and the grim set of her jaw drained the humor out of the comment.

Jackson frowned.  "Symptoms?"

"Hell of a fever, coughing blood, palsy, you name it.  Sodding lot of pain, enough that he's showing it pretty strongly despite his high pain threshold. Since he's not really supposed to get sick after all those mods, or so we've understood up 'til now, we're at a bit of a loss how to deal with it.  Apollo's being a Jewish mother, but you'd probably guess that."  She thought for a second before adding, "And I hope Midnighter's biology can handle street-grade morphine."

"What?" 

"Nevermind. If he couldn't, I would've heard by now."

Jackson shook his head.  "Nothing in the files would indicate the possibility that either of them could experience any serious illness, but like I said, the files are hardly comprehensive since we lost Skywatch.  Definitely something we need to look into, I'd say, and beyond my immediate knowledge.  I do have the contact numbers for some of the old Stormwatch medical team back in New York.  Not the surgeons who did the mods on Midnighter and Apollo, but some of the more standard staff. Good people.  I can have them here within 24 hours, I think. I assume there's some kind of infirmary or lab facility on this ship?"

Jenny finished her beer and reached for another and a fresh cigarette.  "I imagine so. I'll have Angie look into it.  You just get your people together and we'll find them a place to work."  Angie. Wake up, girl. Time to join the rest of the bleedin' early birds.

Already on it, Jenny. Jack's kept me posted throughout.  Carrier Medlab is unusual but certainly functional. came the Engineer's quick response. 

_That's my girl_. Jenny nodded at Jackson, rising from the bed smoothly.   "We're set.  Let's do it."

[To Be Continued...]


	2. Interlude

**MANTRAPS** Act II: Interlude 

Jenny paced the corridors, restless.  Smouldering cigarette jabbed between two fingers, she rubbed her temples and replayed events of the past few days in her mind.  

Electrocuted corpses plummeting like stinking rag dolls from the sky.  

The shattered, sodden remains of skulls dripping from Hawksmoor's fingers.  

Shen's inhuman shriek as she tore attackers out of the air.  Flesh rending in once-pacifist talons. 

The Doctor grinning that goofy "I-can't-believe-what-I-can-do" grin as millions black shards, shards that had once been people, coalesced into massive oaks in downtown Los Angeles.

Short-lived triumph, soured with destruction both past and present.

The Midnighter, teeth gritted in pain, shivering in a disarray of blankets. 

Angie painstakingly explaining the Carrier's infirmary facilities to yet another group of ex-Stormwatch med staff, many out of retirement and most with a tightness around their eyes that recalled the last space station's fate and reminded even Jenny of the tragedy and loss of past colleagues.

Soured with memory. _Damn memory_, she thought darkly.

In her almost one hundred years of life, Jenny Sparks had seen her share of horror, and had brought another share in her own wake at times.  In the last few weeks, she had begun to hope that this new team of remarkable individuals might just become a true force for creating a finer world.  But, as she had told Apollo only a few days ago, bad things always happened when she led teams. _Well_, Jenny thought wearily_, now he knows what I meant, doesn't he?_

More unwanted memories assailed her as she walked slowly through the Carrier's vast emptiness. No amount of pressure from her fingertips could stave away today's images.

Apollo's cradling his half-conscious partner against his chest, carrying him with tender reluctance to the waiting medicos.  

The Midnighter's delirious roar as he surged out of the grip of the med techs, snarling like a caged animal, ripping arterial lines from his body in a spray of blood.  

The tears in Apollo's eyes as he pinned his lover, taking not only the physical abuse but also the fevered oaths of hatred and condemnation which the struggling man hurled against him.  

Jenny's lips curved downward at the corners, remembering phrases, words dreamed up out of some past nightmare, now living again in fever-induced hallucinations, and laced with the anger born of terror. 

Her hand was already reaching to toggle the Medlab door when she paused, looking in through the window.  Surrounded by a forest of monitors, wires, tubing, and attended by silent white-coated technicians, the Midnighter lay stretched on one of the alien exam tables, unconscious now.  _Good_, Jenny thought, recalling the significant damage he had done in one of several hallucinatory bouts, wrecking a world of equipment and breaking a few bones among the science staff before Apollo could subdue him. 

Now Apollo sat in his usual spot beside the bed.  Leaning forward, his forehead resting on the edge of the table, he was a picture of complete exhaustion.  His white hair was lank, his Kirlian aura nonexistent to Jenny's eyes.  For a moment, she thought he was asleep, but when the door slid open, he lifted his head and turned stiffly in his seat to see her. The blue eyes that sought hers had something of the quality of a drowning man's, their color dulled to that of a storm-overwhelmed sea and shot through with streaks of tired red.  

Standing behind him, Jenny put her arms around his broad shoulders with surprising gentleness.  The hard muscles were cool from inactivity and lack of sunlight, and he smelled faintly of sweat. A low vibration against her chest and arms, his voice cracked when he tried to speak.  "He's dying, Jenny."  The words were simple, unemotional, and they hit like stones.

"I know," she responded, tightening the circle of her arms slightly.  "I'm sorry, luv."

Something warm and wet splashed on the back of her hand, but Apollo's voice remained eerily steady, the voice of a man who has spent long hours alone, weighing options against hopes, accepting the general unfairness of the world. Jenny knew the feeling well. Part of her wanted to cry with him, the honest, soundless tears of expected grief.  Part of her snarled and bit and struggled, refusing to acknowledge their helplessness against this internal threat.

"They're taking him off some of the drugs. He'll be suffering again soon, but…" The taint of resignation was uncharacteristic and sounded raw and unnatural in his tone. "I think he'd rather have the pain if it allows him lucidity.  He wouldn't want to be out of his head when…" He stopped abruptly.

Jenny looked at the figure on the table, pale beneath the sheets.  Layers of restraining straps replete with buckles strangely mimicked his usual leather garb.  The Midnighter stirred uncomfortably, the tightness around his sunken eyes evidence that his pain was increasing.  Uncomfortably aware there was nothing more to say, the leader of the Authority turned away and headed for the War Room and a phone to contact Jackson King.  There had to be another option.  

Behind her, Apollo put his head down on the table again in search of the sleep that evaded him.

[…To Be Continued…]


End file.
